LITTLE ROCK (AP) — A pair of Arkansas school districts filed court papers Tuesday asking a federal judge to delay enforcing an order that limits student transfers between school districts.

U.S. District Judge Robert Dawson ruled this month that a state law allowing the transfers was unconstitutional because a significant part of it relies on a districts racial composition before transfers are allowed.

The Camden Fairview and El Dorado school districts on Tuesday asked that Dawson give the Legislature a chance to fix the law before the transfers are stopped.

The two districts had intervened in the case, but said in the court filings that they do not plan to appeal.

Arkansas’ legislature next meets in January and the districts said that legislators should get an opportunity to correct provisions that Dawson found flawed.

A group of white parents in Malvern had sued the state, claiming that it was wrong for education officials to bar their children from entering the adjacent Magnet Cove School District

The students were not allowed to transfer under the law that prohibits transfers into districts where the percentage of the student’s race is higher than the percentage in the student’s resident district. The children in the case are white and the Malvern district is 60 percent white, while Magnet Cove is 95 percent white.

As Dawson reviewed the law, he said that its reliance on the racial makeup of the district was so interwoven in the law that all of it had to be declared unconstitutional.

His decision has left thousands of families wondering where the children will attend school this fall. Some districts open classes in eight weeks.

The Malvern parents said they should be given the option of putting their children in the school of their choice, but Dawson said the state’s reliance on racial matters violates the 14th Amendment’s guarantee of equal protection under the law.

The state has 468,000 public school students, and about 15,000 children attend schools in non-resident districts.

Attorney Allen P. Roberts of Camden, who represents the intervening districts, said he expects the judge to rule without a hearing. He noted that the sides can appeal to the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals any ruling granting or denying a stay. The original plaintiffs have already filed a notice of appeal for the ruling itself.